You can bargain for anything in China

This post is somewhat of a follow on from my previous post about the perks of being white in China.

I'd been contemplating joining the gym down the road for awhile now, and finally I decided to join after taking the tour. However, since I knew my two young American workmates were also looking to join a gym, I thought I'd join up together with them if they took the tour and were keen. Best decision I ever made!

In the end another visiting American lecturer, we'll call him professor Haris, also decided to come along for a look. Since all four of us weren't sure if we were staying beyond 3 months from now, we would've all been forced to pay for the higher price/month for the 3 month membership. That is, if I had gone individually, that might have been the case.

This being China, one can bargain for anything if the circumstances allow it, and that includes gym membership! First of all there were four of us, so obviously we could bargain on the basis of a bulk discount. However, secondly and probably more importanly of all, I had three caucasians with me. There aren't as many foreigners in our city compared to the bigger cities in China, and this gym is also located in the outer suburbs of Nanjing, so foreign folk are somewhat of a rarity in this area. Make no mistake, foreign patrons (and especially caucasians), would be a big drawcard for a gym in China. Why? Well for a couple of reasons.

The first I mentioned in the prior blog. There's this perception that if your establishment is used by foreigners, the quality must be superior to the competition's. This makes sense since people from developed countries are accustomed to and generally have higher expectations of goods and services than people from developing countries. I can't fathom how people in China put up with some of the service (or lack thereof) everywhere you go - supermarkets, banks, transport etc etc.

The thing unique about the gym compared to other types of businesses is that they are a western concept, adopted by asians. A couple of decades ago the concept of paying for gym membership would have been ludicrous in China, but now with growing incomes and western influence more and more Chinese are embracing the concept of communal workouts. So it only stands to reason that if one sees a white person at their local Chinese gym, he/she must be some sort of gym guru. On top of this my two young American workmates are fitness fanatics, so they're in shape with relatively good figures. Depending on how you look at it, it can be a good thing to have not only white people in your gym, but also white people who know what they're doing! It's sort of like giving street cred to the place. On the flipside though, personally if I walked into a gym where every other guy there had arms the size of my torso I'd be a little intimadated and turned off from joining. This actually reminds me of another quirky China thing. Whenever my workmates would work out in the crap little free gym in our uni other Chinese guys in there would just gawk and stare at their bodies. Often they would just walk up close, stand in front of them and stare, while they were doing their workout. I know my American mates relish the attention they receive in China, but even this has been a bit too much to handle!

The advertised price was 880 yuan for three months per person and initially we were offered 700 upon asking for the bulk discount. Professor Haris is an economics lecturer, so he was pulling out all sorts of other reasons any typical economist would - frequency of visits, our low wages, inconvenience to travel here etc. That, and he was also a hard-ass at bargaining.

Between his broken English and my translations our 'salesman' had to keep making phonecalls to talk to his manager and mediate the bargaining process. When it was clear that they weren't going to budge on 700, we wrote down our mobile numbers and pulled out the ole walk-away trick. Immediately, the manager came running out of his office and we were begged to come back and sit down! Seems like those phonecalls were not long-distance at all :)

In the end we were able to get them down close to what we were aiming for - 500 yuan per head. This was on condition that we didn't tell any other member about this special little deal, which of course we wouldn't divulge. Not like any other Chinese members would have the same bargaining chips though. So, yet again, an example of the perks of hanging around foreigners in China! Although I'm white on the inside, it counts for nothing if you look like a local on the outside.

The only other interesting thing to mention about the gym was that they also had a room full of pool and billard tables! Oh and also nobody puts down towels on equipment when they use them, but that's nothing of a surprise to me now!